


Real Bisexual Kissing

by shiphitsthefan



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (faux lesbian kisses don't count), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archie Andrews Is A Brooding YA Hero, Betty Cooper Deserves Better, Episode: s01e01 The River's Edge, F/F, First Dates, First Kiss, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 19:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9509420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: It’s anticlimactic, the way Archie turns her down on the dance floor. She couldn’t even deem it heart-breaking. In a strange way, Betty feels relieved, and that’s disappointing in and of itself. Betty is supposed to be trying to hold herself together next to the bleachers, not slightly scowling and entirely nonplussed.There is the bubbling beginning of anger at him for being a horrible best friend, Betty supposes.Mostly, all she can think about is the way Veronica’s lipstick felt on her mouth.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **IT'S MY VERY FIFTIETH FANFIC!**
> 
> In celebration, have some soft bisexual smooching. <3
> 
> Thanks to [betts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts/works) for betaing (and also flailing with me over text about the pilot). More thanks to [aerialiste](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aerialiste/pseuds/aerialiste/works) for flailing with me over twitter. Finally, thanks to Britta, who will never be able to read this.

Disappointment isn’t exactly new to Betty Cooper. If she got to enjoy her own achievements and wants and desires for more than twenty-four hours, Betty would be surprised. Kevin would likely feel obligated to throw a parade to celebrate, and the forecast would ultimately predict inclement weather. Disappointment in spades.

But rain is reserved for dark and stormy nights, and tonight is cool and clear and comfortable. Betty’s dolled up like the main character of a John Hughes movie. This is her first school dance; she’s chosen not to dwell on how utterly depressing that is, choosing to enjoy it before the weatherman inevitably ruins it. Archie has her on the dance floor, and her arms are around his neck, and this is the moment she’s been waiting for all summer.

Betty Cooper should be excited. She prepared for this like any good actress would--she memorized her script. There are supposed to be butterflies in her stomach, although the concept had always seemed more disgusting than romantic to her, not that anyone ever bothered asking.

No, even worse, Betty Cooper should be  _ ecstatic. _

Betty Cooper, however, is disappointed.

It’s anticlimactic, the way Archie turns her down on the dance floor. She couldn’t even deem it heart-breaking. In a strange way, Betty feels relieved, and that’s disappointing in and of itself. Betty is supposed to be trying to hold herself together next to the bleachers, not slightly scowling and entirely nonplussed.

There is the bubbling beginning of anger at Archie for being a horrible best friend, Betty supposes. She’s preemptively irritated at Kevin for no other reason than he’ll wind up screwing an arrow-straight quarterback tonight. Romance has never been Kevin’s strong suit; it makes it hard for him to relate to her sickening crush.

Mostly, all Betty can think about is the feeling of someone else’s lipstick on her mouth.

Before Veronica kissed her, everything was...well, it wasn’t  _ simple, _ and it certainly wasn’t  _ fine, _ but it also wasn’t  _ unbelievably confusing. _ She’d admired other girls, other women, but so did everyone else. There was nothing special about Betty. Wrapping herself up in Archie was easy; add in school and her mother’s overbearing and manipulative ways, and Betty didn't have time to think about anything else. Which, really, was for the best. All other thoughts led down Disappointment Drive.

Betty’s palms were marred with little half moons, but it was worth it to keep herself sane. Plain. Pretty, but unremarkable. That had been her default reaction for so long, especially when it came to Cheryl, even more so when it was Cheryl with her sycophantic audience. Betty let her nails bite into her skin and kept herself polite.

Veronica had no such compunction. She was elegant and outspoken, brash and beautiful. Betty’s head was still spinning, and then her stomach was churning and her palms stung and bled, and then Veronica went and not only faced Cheryl, but  _ eviscerated  _ her. It was the single greatest moment of Betty’s life; she would have cherished it even without the kiss.

Cheryl was fake, but that so-called faux lesbian kiss had felt more than real to Betty.

She’s glad Archie wasn’t her second kiss. That would have been  _ really _ disappointing.

“Are you okay?” Veronica asks, and Betty jumps and gasps and it’s probably pathetic.

“Yeah, I was just...I don’t know, staring off into space, I guess.” Betty looks at Veronica. She’s smirking, and her arms are crossed, and her collarbones are nicer than Betty had previously believed collarbones to be capable of.

That eyebrow lift--it’s almost a lilt, actually, assuming an artfully-plucked clump of hair can be musical. Either way, Betty’s certain she’s only ever seen it on Kevin, and she can’t decide how that makes her feel. “You’re a really terrible liar to people who aren’t named Cheryl.”

“It doesn’t count when you’re lying to Elizabeth Báthory,” says Betty, smiling. “Archie’s kind of a terrible person, that’s all.”

“I still can’t believe he tried to turn you down.”

“Us,” Betty reminds her.

Veronica grabs Betty’s arm; it’s the best touch she’s had since they got to the dance, and she definitely doesn’t know how  _ that _ makes her feel. “Even worse.” She grins, all sincerity and perfect white teeth. Betty wonders what this shade of lipstick would feel like against her own. “You wanna ditch this? It’s like going to the receiving of friends after a particularly awkward funeral.”

“I thought we were going to Cheryl’s after-party...thing.”

Eyebrows are back in action, joined by dimples, which is entirely unfair. “I have a sudden, terrible headache that only a cheeseburger and chocolate malt is going to fix.”

She leans in, then puts her hand over Veronica’s to see what it feels like. Holding a hand, not Veronica’s skin. Okay, maybe that, too, but not in a particularly creepy way. Hopefully.

“Betty?”

Internal arguments should probably wait until Betty’s alone. “Yeah?”

“You’re wifi, and I just lost you.”

“Sorry. Sometimes I think too hard.” She doesn’t even try to lie to Veronica this time.

“So?” asks Veronica, eyebrows and dimples and an equally-lethal head tilt. “Cheeseburger? Chocolate malt? Split a basket of onion rings?”

“What about Cheryl?” Betty hisses. “Won’t she kick us off the squad if we don’t show?”

“Nah. Not her style.” Veronica pulls her hand out from under Betty’s, then links their arms together and starts walking for the doors to the gym. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before I have to watch Archie eyeball that chaperone again.”

Betty cranes her head to look behind her; the only teacher she sees is Ms. Grundy. “Wait, really?”

“I don’t think either of us are the right age for Archie,” says Veronica. “Which...who’s the guidance counselor around here, anyway? That shouldn’t happen outside of fanfic.”

“Whoa, you too?”

“Dirty little secret.” Veronica winks at her. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

 

* * *

 

Unlike everything else over the course of Betty’s life, Pop’s onion rings have never let her down. They’re always the perfect crisp--not too hard, not soft. The onion’s never soggy, and when she bites into one, it never pulls all the way out of the crust and leaves an empty shell behind, like a snail. Never, ever like a snail.

Betty likes hers with the barest smear of ketchup. Veronica dips hers in mustard as if it’s the last chance she’ll ever have to eat a yellow condiment.

“So who is that guy over there?” Veronica asks over their second order of onion rings. They’re waiting on another set of malts, and they haven’t even gotten close to wanting cheeseburgers.

“Who, Jughead?” Veronica pops the rest of her onion ring into her mouth and hums to confirm. “Well, he used to be friends with me and Archie. Ever since we were kids. And then--” Betty hesitates.

“What?”

“I’m honestly not sure. It was kind of a weird summer.”

Veronica nods. “I hear that.” She reaches for the bottle of mustard again. “So, Jughead. Does he go to school with us?”

Betty peers over Veronica’s shoulder. As if on cue, Jughead glances up from his laptop.

He blinks at her. It’s uncomfortable.

“Yes? Maybe. I dunno. Jughead just...kind of...is.”

“Like, loner, insomniac, working-on-the-next-great-American-novel type?”

Ducking her head, Betty giggles. “Pretty much sums it up. He basically lives here. Classic symbiotic relationship. If the Chock’lit Shoppe was a person, they’d be dating.”

Veronica has the most incredulous look plastered on her face. “Riverdale just keeps getting weirder.”

And that’s how the rest of the evening goes. Betty asks Veronica about New York, and Veronica asks her about Riverdale--they each have their drama and faults, Betty supposes. When examined closely enough, all places really are the same, full of secrets and oddities and...well, disappointments. A community is nothing more than a family, and Tolstoy happened to be right.

“You are one smart cookie, Betty Cooper,” and it’s the first time anyone’s acknowledged her brains outside of class or sessions of maternal interrogation. There’s heat in her cheeks, and Betty hopes it doesn’t show through her foundation.

Veronica dresses like she just stepped out of a sorority meeting, but she’s as down to earth as Betty is, beneath all the careful cultivation. Neither of them know what they want to do after college; neither of them want to even think past sophomore year.

“Mom tells me to make sure I’m employable,” Veronica tells her as she picks up her half of the finally-ordered cheeseburger. “She says it’s important to never be dependent on a spouse.”

Betty happily notes that she didn’t say “husband” before kicking herself for doodling Veronica’s name in the margins of her mental notes. “I don’t know that my parents have any particular plans for me beyond always being perfect, no matter what.”

“That really sucks,” and Betty just tilts her head and shrug-nods. “For what it’s worth,” says Veronica, chasing Betty’s eyes, “you’re something special, and that’s harder to be than perfect.”

After a long pause in which Jughead stares at her while he types, Betty quietly says, “I don’t know what to say.” It feels as innately silly as Betty does, to say that she doesn’t know what to say. There’s an MLA style book laughing at her somewhere.

“Just roll with it, Nancy Drew,” so Betty does.

They’ve finally polished off the onion rings and are almost done with their shared cheeseburger when Betty realizes this is, essentially, her first date. Veronica was her first kiss, too, and Betty doesn’t know if any of these firsts matter as much to Veronica as they do to her, because they  _ do _ matter. She didn’t give them away to Archie, who she didn’t realize was such a dick until Veronica glided into an ancient diner and kept Betty from confessing her love to Archie.

So Veronica’s the first person to ever save her from herself, as well.

Betty grabs her glass and half-sips the malt and half-chews the straw and is generally half-terrified.

“Are you okay?” Veronica asks. For a horrible, wonderful moment, Betty thinks she’s going to take her hand across the table.

She closes her eyes and steels herself for disappointment. “Was it fake?”

“Was what fake?”

“The--” Betty forces her eyes back open and there are Veronica’s gorgeous brown ones, the kind of eyes she’s only seen between journalistic integrity in the pages of  _ Teen Vogue. _ “The kiss,” she explains. “The one Cheryl said wasn’t taboo.”

Veronica bites her bottom lip; it’s the first time Betty’s ever seen her nervous. “My motivation wasn’t exactly romantic.”

“Oh.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real, though. I just wasn’t sure it would be until it was happening.”

Betty accidentally flicks her eyes to Veronica’s suprasternal notch. Biology’s already coming in handy. “Have you kissed girls before?”

“No. Have you?”

“I’d never kissed anyone.”

A deep breath across the table, and then, “Do you want to do it again?”

Betty licks her lips before she can stop herself. “I think so.”

“Me, too.” Veronica laughs, more air than voice, and stands up. She offers her hand to Betty, then calls back to Jughead, “Watch our stuff, Steinbeck. We’ll be right back.”

“Sure,” Jughead mutters. “Why not.”

The night is still cool and clear and comfortable. Nothing in the world has changed, but Betty feels like she’s standing on the brink of irrevocable evolution, anyway. She’d imagined kissing Archie so many times, kissed into her pillow to practice when the only person Betty could embarrass and disappoint was herself. But kissing Veronica isn’t like a test to study for, a speech to prepare and rehearse. This is organic, just chemistry, abstract geometry.

Veronica takes Betty’s hands there in the parking lot, laces their fingers, pressing their palms together. It isn’t like the kiss in the gym, purposefully meant to titillate an audience, to bait, to tease, but not for themselves. This isn’t lit by harsh fluorescents or judged by Cheryl and the Harlots; there’s Pop’s neon sign, and the lights in the parking lot, and the stars.

But their lips fit together the same way, and their bodies still jive and juxtapose when they finally wrap their arms around each other. Veronica’s hands clasp behind Betty’s waist, and Betty’s hands find the warm skin of Veronica’s shoulderblades. She runs her thumbs along them, just to see how it feels to explore a back that isn’t hers. Surprisingly, it feels good, though not in the way Kevin had explained to her. Betty doesn’t feel heat in the pit of her stomach like he promised she would; all it feels is good, and right, and simple.

Veronica’s mouth tastes like malt as they trade lipstick and ruin each other’s hair. Her high heels are slowly sinking into a crack in the pavement. Jughead is probably glaring at them through the window for disrupting his flow. 

It’s perfect.

Betty Cooper isn’t disappointed.

**Author's Note:**

> [[about me](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/about)] [[tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/)] [[twitter](https://twitter.com/shiphitsthefan)]
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3


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